How Charitable Gift Annuities Support the MCV Campus and Provide Income for Life

By Paul Brockwell | Photo by Daniel Sangjib Min

Martin Yecies grew up knowing the MCV Campus was the place to go when your loved one needed the best care available.  

“If you’re a Richmonder, and even if you lived beyond Richmond, you knew the MCV name," he said.  

His mother benefited from bypass surgery in the early 1970s when VCU’s internationally known surgeons were among the few who could provide the level of care his mother needed. At the time, bypass surgery was emerging as an advanced but risky procedure, yet VCU Health surgeons saved her life then, and again a decade later when she needed the surgery a second time. Yecies never forgot. 

His appreciation deepened into something more concrete when exploring ways to give back through a charitable gift annuity. 

For Yecies, whose career was in finance, both for the Air National Guard and for several companies where he managed investments and treasury operations, charitable gift annuities were a natural fit. Yecies chose to establish a charitable gift annuity because he wanted to make a meaningful gift that supports the MCV Campus while also paying him income for life, much of which is tax-free. 

Establishing a charitable gift annuity (CGA) is a simple contract between a donor and the MCV Foundation that, in exchange for a gift of cash, stock or marketable securities, provides you a regular income payment for life. At the end of the CGA term, the remainder is distributed to support the area a donor designates at VCU or VCU Health.  

For Yecies, the process was easy: he wrote a check to the MCV Foundation, signed a simple agreement outlining the tax benefits and he now receives a monthly amount through direct deposit. Just as important to him is the peace of mind that comes from knowing that all the remaining funds will ultimately go toward supporting the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center.  

Underlying his generosity is a conviction shaped by watching his mother benefit from cutting-edge cardiac care decades ago: real, continuing advances in medicine. Philanthropy, in his view, is needed to bridge a growing gap in traditional sources of research funding. 

“I’ve seen vast advances in medical science, and it’s affected my family personally,” he said. “I'd like to be a part of helping those advances continue.” 

As an additional incentive to giving, Yecies is fortunate to live in a community that believes in donating both time and resources to worthwhile causes. His advice to anyone considering a similar gift is practical: talk to different people, weigh the options and find what fits your situation.  

For Yecies, a charitable gift annuity supporting the Pauley Heart Center was the clear answer and a way to turn his lifelong appreciation for medical progress into a gift that will advance care and research in the future.  

If you would like to learn more about how to support the MCV Campus through a charitable gift annuity, please contact Jason Chestnutt, CFP®, assistant vice president of planned giving, at 804-828-1671 or chestnuttjr@vcu.edu.